Can I interest anyone in some FOOD?

[crlygrl]

That was the longest hummus recipe I've ever seen

Do they make vegan boxed cake mix? Because I made cupcakes the other night with cake mix, a little veggie oil, a half cup of applesauce and a cup of water. No eggs or butter. They turned out pretty good... and if you found vegan cake mix I'd imagine it would be kosher, sotospeak....

[Gene George]

That was the longest hummus recipe I've ever seen

Hummus is one of those litmus test foods, like mashed potatoes, spaghetti sauce, hard boiled/fried egg sandwiches, vinagrette. If you can't learn to do those right, kill yourself. If you cease to enjoy making them, kill yourself.

[crlygrl]

I like to buy hummus. But I enjoy it, so I'll skip the suicide today.

[Gene George]

I like to buy hummus. But I enjoy it, so I'll skip the suicide today.

Buying it is OK. But I'm saying if you attempt to make some and fail, lets just arbitrarily say FIVE times to make it correctly. Do yourself in.

[rabbitandox]

I may be vegan, but I'm still really, really lazy. And cheap. All I can do is boil some frozen tofu ravioli and top it with a bottle of spaghetti sauce. (There's no way I could make spaghetti sauce from scratch.)

Also sometimes I chop up potatoes, mushrooms, and carrots, and throw them in a pot with some frozen fake-meat tvp and a little bit of vegetable oil for about 15 minutes (salt and pepper to taste). Price: ~$4.

Nothing that can challenge the coolness of that seabass on pg. 1.

[Gene George]

I may be vegan, but I'm still really, really lazy. And cheap. All I can do is boil some frozen tofu ravioli and top it with a bottle of spaghetti sauce. (There's no way I could make spaghetti sauce from scratch.)

It's a lot easier than you think to make simple things like a quick tomato basil sauce especially if its a simple chopped and sauted one. Or a tomato basil salad.

Get good tomatoes. crush them if they're cherry or grape tomatoes. dice them if larger, salt them lightly (I use kosher salt). Let sit for half an hour. put them in the broiler until they start to brown/ roast a bit. add a touch of olive oil and mix into your pasta with some chopped basil and garlic or add sliced purple onion and basil to make a salad. Or you could sautee all of the above and add to pasta. Seriously you would have to be stuck to the couch in your own filth lazy to not do this. The recipe you describe is harder than the one above.

Another one is boiled potatoes with peppers, toasted cumin, and olive oil or greek yogurt if you are an omnivore. That's the ingredients list and the recipe basically. It makes a kind of potato salad and is thoroughly bad ass.

Here is the easiest recipe I know.

Maghrebi Cauliflower: chop or break up a head of cauliflower into bite size pieces. place in an oven safe pan (I use a cast iron skillet) wiped down with olive oil. Cook in a preheated 450 degree oven for 25-35 minutes or until the florets are browning. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve.

[rabbitandox]

You're quite inspiring, do you know that?

[Gene George]

Food should be better going in than it is coming out.

Wait, what?

[Harry Bongers]

It's a lot easier than you think to make simple things like a quick tomato basil sauce especially if its a simple chopped and sauted one. Or a tomato basil salad.

Get good tomatoes. crush them if they're cherry or grape tomatoes. dice them if larger, salt them lightly (I use kosher salt). Let sit for half an hour. put them in the broiler until they start to brown/ roast a bit. add a touch of olive oil and mix into your pasta with some chopped basil and garlic or add sliced purple onion and basil to make a salad. Or you could sautee all of the above and add to pasta. Seriously you would have to be stuck to the couch in your own filth lazy to not do this. The recipe you describe is harder than the one above.

Another one is boiled potatoes with peppers, toasted cumin, and olive oil or greek yogurt if you are an omnivore. That's the ingredients list and the recipe basically. It makes a kind of potato salad and is thoroughly bad ass.

Here is the easiest recipe I know.

Maghrebi Cauliflower: chop or break up a head of cauliflower into bite size pieces. place in an oven safe pan (I use a cast iron skillet) wiped down with olive oil. Cook in a preheated 450 degree oven for 25-35 minutes or until the florets are browning. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve.

Gene is right. A tomato sauce is one of the easiest and most versatile sauces you can make. To really amp it up take a clove of garlic, cut the top quarter off, place it on aluminum foil drizzle with olive oil and kosher salt and roast at 375ish for about a half hour, or until it's creamy and golden. Just squeeze it out into the tomato sauce and stir. Roasted garlic tomato sauce. You lazy fuck. You can also add capers, herbs, balsamic vinegar, crushed red pepper, roasted red peppers or whatever you feel like to change the sauce. Even just get some good tinned tomatos, like San Marzano, saute some diced carrots, leeks or shallots and garlic then add the tomatoes - juice and all -- and simmer until it's slightly reduced and thickened.

And roasted cauliflower is really, really good. You can get fancy and top it with a toasted beurre noisette (panko and brown butter and crisped under the broiler), or puree it with some vegetable stock, roasted onions and tyhme and whatever the hell vegans eat instead of cream or milk and make an awesome soup.

Toss that same roasted cauliflower with some peas sauteed with canola oil and curry powder and serve it on some wilted spinach.

Pretty much roasted anything is good -- like braising -- it concentrates the flavours of the food and adds a real depth to them. They are probably the two best ways to coax flavour out of ingredients and turn them into some entirely different than what you started with. Plus they tend to work best with the less expensive ingredients.

[Gene George]

Plus they tend to work best with the less expensive ingredients.

So true.

The thing that most people who are intimidated by cooking tend to overlook is that most food is not high-end cuisine but simple, cheap ingredients prepared with a minimum of fuss. True, a lot of things might be time intensive (brewing, most cheeses, pastrami, ham, corned beef, sauerkraut, kimchee, pickles), or even labor intensive (pierogis, cabbage rolls, tamales) but most are very straightforward. More food is cooked on a sheet metal griddle over a banked wood fire, or buried in hot coals and baked than is sauced and served in fine dining restaurants.

The most shitty, horrifying thing foisted off on the American people is the shibboleth called "convenience". We are so beaten down with the idea that food prep is a drudgery to be avoided that we rarely see that most food prep for simple dishes adds a negligible amount of time to the whole process. That that extra 20 minutes you do spend results in a dish that is better and often cheaper and healthier than the "convenient" food. Food science is wonderful but it should support the cooking of good foods, not supplant it.

A decent fried-egg sandwich or a pupusa filled with cheese and onion is so utterly easy to do and in the hands of an experienced spatula-wielder comes out almost as fast as anything you can nuke.

I'll get off my soapbox with this: There is a simple joy to cooking that I get every time I make a meal for myself or my family and friends. Cooking is one of the few things that has a discrete beginning, middle, and end. You plan, prep, execute, serve, and finally eat and enjoy. Few things in the modern world have such a tight arc and it is an arc YOU own and control. Three things in the world give you this; cooking, comedy, and sex. Maybe killing hookers does too but I haven't tried that*. When I get back from work I can relax and prep veg for dinner get my things I need to work with all in one place and depending on my mood and the dishes I'm preparing, preside over all with a relaxed, benevolent hand or sweat the shit down with the precise, honed reflexes of a goddamn hot-line samurai, turning and burning a bunch of complex dishes at once.


*Although that could be considered a subset of sex, and if you eat their bodies, cooking.

[scamboogah]

Cooking is one of the few things that has a discrete beginning, middle, and end. You plan, prep, execute, serve, and finally eat and enjoy.

You left out doing the dishes.

SEXIST!

[crlygrl]

My boyfriend does the dishes. Which is why I have cooked dinner every single night since we moved in together.

My new favorite thing is to roast acorn squash, scoop out the middle and mix (hand mixer) with brown sugar (1 spoonful at most) an egg and some butter. Maybe a spoonful of flour. Then I bake it.

[Harry Bongers]

You plan, prep, execute, serve, and finally eat and enjoy. Few things in the modern world have such a tight arc and it is an arc YOU own and control. Three things in the world give you this; cooking, comedy, and sex.

Gene, I think you might be doing sex wrong.

[scamboogah]

Gene, I think you might be doing sex wrong.

and comedy.

[Harry Bongers]

and comedy.

I'm not sure. I might pay to see that set.

[Gene George]

I burn both sex and comedy.

[Harry Bongers]

Does anyone have any experience with pork belly?

I'm having a dinner party with 3 courses and I've decided to go with a theme I thought of that might be fun. Each course will be based on comfort foods from breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For the first course I'm playing on bacon and eggs and serving braised pork belly with a sweet potato hash topped with a poached quail's egg.

But is roasted pork belly better than braised? Any suggestions?

Second course is based on Kraft Dinner and will be orzo and mascarpone 'risotto' with butter poached lobster and a parmesan crisp.

Third is based on meat 'n potatoes but I haven't decided yet. Any ideas?

[scamboogah]

I saw a pretty incredible looking 'bacon and eggs' ice cream the other day. If I remember where it was from, I'll let you know.

[Gene George]

Does anyone have any experience with pork belly?

I'm having a dinner party with 3 courses and I've decided to go with a theme I thought of that might be fun. Each course will be based on comfort foods from breakfast, lunch and dinner.

For the first course I'm playing on bacon and eggs and serving braised pork belly with a sweet potato hash topped with a poached quail's egg.

But is roasted pork belly better than braised? Any suggestions?

Second course is based on Kraft Dinner and will be orzo and mascarpone 'risotto' with butter poached lobster and a parmesan crisp.

Third is based on meat 'n potatoes but I haven't decided yet. Any ideas?

I've only cured and smoked p/b for bacon. Maybe do a char siu style roast?

I am blanking on quirky arty ideas for meat n' potatoes. maybe a beef satay or curried beef w/ potatos and peas?

[Harry Bongers]

I've only cured and smoked p/b for bacon. Maybe do a char siu style roast?

I am blanking on quirky arty ideas for meat n' potatoes. maybe a beef satay or curried beef w/ potatos and peas?

I thought about Chinese, or Korean type flavours with a soy braise but I thought that such specific flavours for a starter may set a dischordant tone for the meal. I was thinking of rubbing it with ground fennel seeds, mustard seeds, black pepper and some spanish paprika then braising it in stock and white wine with some aromatics. But then I thought roasting it to get the crispy skin might be a better option to give it another texture.